HighSchoolOfGlasgow vs Acuity

With the Peggy Bayer last weekend three of our team were busy catching up on University work, so the reserves were brought in for this league match against last season's champions. I played with Kevin, and Harry with Phil Moon.

As the host of the match I was responsible for the setup, so take full blame for accidenally leaving the barometer on, meaning we could all see the scores. I also take the blame for this one:

Expecting a Heart stopper of something like AQx, I went for a surpise Spade lead. Declarer collected the next ten tricks, and as the hand revealed itself I realised that partner must have had the Ace of Hearts all along. Perhapas it's time for an agreement of what it means when we double their cuebid in our suit, then Kevin can double 3♥ when he has the Ace like this.

I also take responsiblity for making an ever so slightly light overcall on ♠854 ♥AQ985 ♦74 ♣J76 , leading to conceding 5♦x. Because I'd left the barometer on, I could see that we'd just lost 26 IMPs.

We pulled it back though. Kevin and I bid aggressively to keep them out of a few games (which Harry and Phil made), and defended well to beat a few games (which Harry and Phil made). My favourite hand though is a rare part score, played at the other table:

The 2♠ overcall is borderline but it finds good support and with 1NT making could lead to a gain. There look to be five inescapable losers - one Spade, one Heart, two Diamonds and a Club. If the Heart Ace is onside you can throw a Club from dummy, but that fails here. Harry played on Diamonds and eventually set up the suit when they split 3-3 and could throw two losing Clubs from hand. Of course the defence had plenty of time to switch to Clubs and foil this plan, but never did, so the hard work paid off and Harry made 3♠=.

We won the match by 78-33 IMPs and will climb back up to about mid-table.

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 9 Scotland vs England

First, team photos from today:

Scotland Peggy Bayer (U21)
Jamie Day, Michael Kennedy, Harry Stuart, Al Duncan, Kevin Ren

Scotland Junior Camrose (U25) team plus NPC Alisdair

I am now away from the event (work Monday morning) so followed this last match on my phone on a replacement bus service somewhere in North-West England. 

With another new face, Tamsin Munro was promoted to our U21 team it was an untested quartet hoping to upset the runaway leaders England in the final match. 

We got off to a great start, as did Scotland U25, also playing against England. The final result in our match was England 47 IMPS, Scotland 45 IMPs. Not bad turnover for 16 boards. Could we have won? Who knows, but a great result. The final standings are therefore

For those 99 Victory points we beat Northern Ireland three out of three times (just), Ireland twice, and England no times (nearly at the end though).

In the U25 Scotland heroically held on to beat England in the last match and end the event on a high. Their final standings:

Playing each team twice, Scotland scored one great win against both England and EBU Juniors, and surprisingly the only team they didn't beat was Wales.

As the players have dinner and prepare for the closing ceremony, here are some of my reflections on the whole event.

Great to play in person. I met a few people I've seen online who knew me by name but had never met me. I was starstruck by seeing Sally Brock. Many of the Juniors I've seen in online matches and were very friendly. There is definitely a community of adults working hard to promote Junior bridge.

The standard was not as high as at the European Junior Championships. No big surprise there. But as Michael on our team said, that meant that we could actually win a match which was nice.

The bridge all went very smoothly. Well done to the tournament directors and anyone else working behind the scenes. The only hiccup was that at one point we were scoring 16 board matches on a 12 board victory point scale (using last year's spreadsheet). It was me who noticed this and pointed it out, even though it cost my team some fraction of a victory point. 

The hotel had perhaps taken on more than they could handle and struggled somewhat with the meals, with the hardworking staff having to work extremely hard to serve everyone. The first dinner was in fact not even finished before the bridge began (I got a lemon meringue pie and Ireland pocketed one each for later but most didn't get dessert).

Scotland showed some promise for the future. Our U25 team I would say need to be more disciplined in the bidding. They forgot their system a few times or bid on inappropriate hands and punted far too many slams. But they have a huge amount of talent and can beat good teams. The U21 team was disciplined in bidding, and I think have the most to learn from more solid declarer play and defence. As non-playing captain they were very easy to manage.

England did the right thing fielding a weaker team - their U16 played in the U21, and still won it but had a few close matches (and famously lost to Northern Ireland, and nearly to us at the end).

I have just been sent a message about a hand to feature on the blog, but that will have to be for another time, I'm signing off now until next year.

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 8 Scotland vs Northern Ireland

In the last round I watched with Wayne Somerville and along with most of the bridge following people in the lounge we noticed that Northern Ireland had taken a lead against England. Miraculously, they held on for a famous win.

Now Scotland, usually the underdogs, were Northern Irelands next targets. I'm pleased to say we've gone from underdogs to being a team-to-beat, at least in the Home Nations.

With Kevin & Michael heading home early (and me on a train back too), our group of five players was down to three for the last two matches. Not quite enough for a bridge team. Tournament Director Gordon Rainsford allowed us to field a substitute player from the U25 ranks. This however makes us 'playing without standing', ineligible for the trophy, both as they are over-age and by using two different players our squad is up to seven. 

This didn't matter too much as we are also ineligible to win by being a long way behind England. 

Against Northern Ireland our ringer was Antone Huang, a skilful cardplayer but maverick overbidder who I'd enjoyed watching on Vugraph but was more anxious about having on the team.

Given that most of our team have similar bridge backgrounds (i.e. they went to my school bridge club), and play simple systems, we have had no bidding misunderstandings at all as far as I know. Certainly people could have bid better, and missed opportunities, but no out-and-out calamities.

As ever though, the plays the thing, and I'm scratching my head as to how we went down in 5D here:

Queen of Hearts lead. The contract went two down, which must only mean you were left with some Heart losers at the end.

We bid two no-play slams, and were in trouble, but came through in the final board here:

Playing 3NT, our West got a nice Queen of Hearts lead. There are now two Hearts, four Clubs, and a Diamond finesse gets you up to nine.

A routine Spade lead puts 3NT at least two down, as happened on both tables in the England-Ireland match. On our other table North bought it in 2S, one off.

At the end of this match we won 50-43 IMPs for a narrow win.

 

 

  

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 7 Scotland vs Ireland

In this triple round-robin we are on to our final match against each team. With just 20 minutes between this and the last one Alexander sensibly went for a walk outside (looks like a lovely day), the rest of the team discussed the missed opportunities. They were all back for a partial team photo:

For Round 7 I sat behind Kevin and Michael for the first few boards. They seemed to be playing quite well. Normally they play worse when I'm sat behind them. 

On the first board I saw Michael had a weak hand with eight Hearts to the Queen and four points total. When partner opened the bidding 1♦ he duly replied 1♥, then when the opposition got to 3♠ made a disciplined pass. This was rewarded when 3♠ went one off (and so would 4♥).

We therefore went five IMPs up. But gave 15 back. Current score 5-15 to Ireland.

Final score - a narrow win for Scotland.

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 6 Scotland vs England

Today I went down for breakfast a full two hours before my team. Twice the hotel staff asked me to move into the lounge as soon as I was finished eating, as they were very busy today. To keep the table I therefore had to have multiple breakfasts, which actually I was planning to do anyway.

With the crunch match against England starting at 10 am, the first of my team arrived at 0930. They weren't late, just playing it cool. Here's me in the lounge.

I watched the first couple of boards. On the first the English declarer had the interesting puzzle of playing 3NT with a Diamond suit as below, with no entries to the long suit.

AKJxxxx     xx

With plenty of tricks to play with, one solution is to lead the Jack from hand. Instead declarer finessed the Jack, which could fail if there is Qxx offside. But today there was Qx onside so everything worked. 

We are currently 22-11 down to England.

Update: things got worse and we lost 62-24. From a viewing perspective most of the losses came in the last few boards, which was demoralising. Here is a missed opportunity, as Scotland got to slam missed at the other table:

6S was played by West. There is work to be done, as you have a potential loser in Spades, Diamonds and Clubs. The Club loser is the most subtle, and the English did well to lead a Club. I would suggest an immediate Diamond finesse (of the Queen), followed by a Spade finesse, then cross to Diamond Ace and finesse trumps again. Making 6 Spades, 2 Hearts, 2 Diamonds, 2 Clubs. But then, I can see all the cards.

Our declarer went one off. I don't have the play details, but there are many ways of losing two tricks (most likely a trump and a Club).

That loss puts us still second but well adrift of England in the standings, and needing to bounce back with a win against Ireland to consolidate second place. 

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 5 Scotland vs Northern Ireland

As expected we won this quite comfortably, collecting a lot of undertricks against some dubious contracts. For North-South the most challenging board by far was this last one:

Kevin Michael W N E S - 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♦ - 4♣ - 5♠ - 6♣ - 6♦ - 6♠ - - -

You can see it's a misfit hand. After a normal start of 1♠-2♥, Kevin went for 3♦. Michael bid a natural 4♣, and we've got all the way to the four level without agreeing a suit. Kevin jumped to 5♠, then they considered a few six level contracts before settling in 6♠.

With Spades 3-3 and every finesse working the contract has good chances. Kevin got a Diamond lead, and drew trumps then put everything on the Hearts, which worked out well here.

I think the challenge of this hand is how to stay out of slam. The Northern Irish pair settled in 4♥+2, so were unlucky to lose IMPs on the board. I'm told their auction was very fast as they only had four minutes left on the clock. In the U25 Scotland's John Russell made 6NT (his favourite contract), on another table it was 6♥-1 and 4NT=, marked with a star on the score card so maybe it was an adjusted result.

After this win the Peggy Bayer standings look like this (5 of 9 matches played):

We still have to play England twice more but are currently comfortably in second.

In the Junior Camrose Scotland are also doing well:

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 4 Scotland vs Ireland

With the scores delicately poised could we repeat our triumph against Ireland? I sat behind Kevin and Michael, and watched in despair, as some Irish underbidding proved to be very effective. They overcalled a seven-card weak two and we generously doubled them into game, conceding 2♠x=.

Here's another mishap:

Kevin Michael W N E S - 1♣ 1♠ - 2♦ - - -

East opened 1♣. I'd said at lunch that the time to stretch was when partner had passed, and indeed Michael ventured a sub-minimum 1♠ overcall. West thought for a while then passed, which I thought might be a trap pass (waiting for East to double). But when Kevin bid 2♦, which is non-forcing (especially as a passed hand) this was quickly passed out, and went two down.

My first thought was that the opponents had missed a game, and this would be a good board for us. But in fact game for East-West isn't easy (in the U25 match featured on Vugraph the English East-West played 4♠-1, the Scottish East-West 3NTxx-1). So when Jamie and Harry went off too it was a loss on the board.

After 9 of 16 boards we are losing 35-22.

Update: lost narrowly overall.

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 3 Scotland vs England

I sat behind Jamie and Harry for this match. On the first board I saw England got into something of a mix-up (I think someone overcalled 1NT with 2NT, which their partner didn't expect), but got out of it in 3♥=. Lucky kids. On the second board Scotland badly overbid this hand:

Jamie		Harry
W	N	E	S
			1♣
2♠	-	3♠	-
4♠	-	-	-

After the English South opened 1♣ Jamie made a weak jump overcall of 2♠. You have four Hearts on the side but I'm OK with this. Harry made a standard raise with three cards. As our bidding gets more sophisticated and we move from all raises being natural, to using cuebids for raises, there's bound to be some confusion, and this was the case here. Jamie raised 3♠ to 4♠.

This is a bad idea as Harry might have had nothing but a few trumps. Here he has a decent hand, but unfortunately his strength in Clubs is opposite the void. The defence took two Diamonds then East South made the strange switch to a low Club and North played low. At this point the contract is actually makeable. You win the Club cheaply in dummy, and rattle off three more Clubs, throwing all your Hearts. North ruffs, but if you guess trumps right you hold your losers to two Diamonds and one Spade. This didn't happen though and it went two off.

At the other table East-West played 3♠-1, so a small loss on the board.

We lost the match by 28 IMPs to lose 4-16 in Victory Points and stay second behind England.

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 2 Scotland vs Northern Ireland

Last night I stayed up late (for me) watching Scotland against the EBU Juniors in the U25 event. They make every board exciting and I really enjoyed Michael Byrne's live commentary.

On the first board Scotland made 3NT redoubled with a couple of overtricks then gave it back with a massive penalty on 5♣, "on a part-score hand" someone in the audience said. "Not in this match," said Michael, "both tables are at the five level." A few 6NT= later and Scotland won the match, to leave them top of the U25 table after two matches played and two wins. Just like the Six Nations though they have many tough matches to come.

Here is a hand Scotland gained on:

After North (Adam Tobias) made the dubious decision to open South (John Russell) was never stopping so Scotland U25 had no trouble getting to slam. As Michael Byrne, said "At some point in this auction South is just going to punt 6NT". Everything went nicely for 12 tricks

Today in the U21 event my team are playing Northern Ireland first, then England. I presume my team will be well rested as so far I've been up for breakfast on my own for an hour.

Update: we were expected to beat Northern Ireland, and indeed after four boards were about 20 IMPs ahead. But then it went even, and I was starting to worry. Luckily, we gained big on the last board for a good win overall:

After a 1NT opening from North, and a Stayman auction Kevin arrived in 3NT. He got a friendly low Spade lead. Later West lead a low Diamond and Kevin gussed Hearts right for three tricks there, and an impressive 11 tricks overall. 3NT went down elsewhere, including crucially when Al and Jamie were defending. Well played guys.

In the other match this morning England were run surprisingly close against Ireland (also clinching it on the last board), so after two rounds Scotland are narrowly ahead. Next our big challenge - the precocious England Juniors!

Peggy Bayer 2023 - Round 1 Scotland vs Ireland

I'm here at Altrincham near Manchester for the 2023 Peggy Bayer, the U21 Home Nations tournament. Our bright young team is kicking off in a couple of hours against Ireland. We are hoping to take some IMPs off them and England (who are boldly playing their U16 team), and compete fiercly with Northern Ireland.

Line-ups and convention cards: here

Running scores: here

Delayed Kibtzing: here

The Ireland team was without one of their players meaning their top pair couldn't play their Precision Club system. Could we take advantage? I was playing a few practice hands with a pair from the U25 team when I first dared to check the scores, and to my astonishment we were 30 IMPs up after four boards. That is even more surprising when you realise that our top pair, Kevin & Michael, bid to 6♥-2 on the first board. I'd told them to play their usual game and unfortuantely that includes bidding dubious slams. They've asked me not to print the auction. Luckily, on the other table Harry & Jamie defeated 4♥ to hold the loss.

Here is a better 6♥:

Kevin Michael W N E S 1♠ - 2♥ - 3♥ - 4♣* - 4♦ - 4NT* - 5♥* - 6♥ - - -

I've included the auction as it has a nice feature - the 2♥ reply over 1♠ showing five cards and not the usual four. That allowed them to find the 5-3 fit quickly and away they go.

In the play, North lead a Club, the Seven. Even though you are opposite a singleton here, I think the correct thing is to take the finesse. The reason is that if it loses you 'break even' by being able to throw a Spade loser on the Ace of Clubs. The West hand is then nearly high, just needing to ruff a Diamond or two. In fact when the Club finesse works you can even eschew the Heart finesse and safely take 12 tricks.

At the table there was some confusion about what the Seven of Clubs lead was, and believing it to be 'top of nothing' declarer went up with the Ace and had to rely on the Heart finesse. 6♥= was a big gain against 4♥+2 at the other table.

Here is a rare 6♥ that Kevin and Michael missed - the key as so often the case with low point count slams is to diagnose the shortage opposite small cards:

Kevin Michael W N E S 1♦ - 1♥ - 1NT - 4♥ - - -

We play weak NT and five card majors, hence East's 1♦ opening and 1NT rebid. West sensibly jumped straight to 4♥. Here is a possible route to the slam - West bids Checkback Stayman over 1NT (even though he already knows there is a Heart fit), and when he hearts 2♥ from East he can splinter with 4♦. Now East knows his hand is all useful cards, which is often more important than overall strength or shape (doesn't matter that you are 4333 when partner has 6-5 shape).

Both tables of course played 4♥+2 for a flat board.

On the other table highlights include Jamie making an excellent 3NT that went down on the other table, and a bizarre auction that I think involved someone asking for Kings and their partner passing. 5NT= was the final result!

In the end we won 59-29, for a strong start.